Walter Chan, Managing Director and Head of User Research of Field Resources Consultant, shares his opinion on the role of the insurance regulator in growing the virtual insurance market in Hong Kong.

Walter Chan, Managing Director and Head of User Research of Field Resources Consultant, shares his opinion on whether virtual insurers in Hong Kong can replicate the success of their counterparts in China.

As 2021 approaches, many companies have begun preparing for new technology investments. According to analysts, financial planning and analysis solutions (FP&A) will make up a significant portion of that investment. In addition, as companies emerge from the pandemic, there will be an accelerated need for solutions that allow for increased agility and faster decision making.
In today’s PodChats for FutureCFO, we speak to Mark Velthuis, President APJ, Jedox. He shares his views on the challenges that COVID-19 has imposed on the finance team and the CFO, the digitization of finance and how AI is influencing financial planning.

Survival for some organisations has hinged on how well they optimise use of capital. What is unique about the COVID-19 crisis is that digital transformation initiatives received a renewed sense of urgency putting even greater pressure on the CFO to understand what investments can deliver the most return to the company’s tactical and strategic goals.

In this episode of PodChats for FutureCFO, we speak to Michele Madonini, Vice-President and Managing Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Financial Services, Asia-Pacific & Japan, to talk about an advisory role they refer to as Chief information finance officer, and how such a position can help companies better plan their investment strategy when it comes to technology acquisition and use.

One of the characteristics of the workplace of 2020 has been the lack of people in the office. COVID-19 saw a significant proportion of businesses adopt remote work in support of efforts to contain the pandemic. Malls, shops and retail stores also saw dramatic closures in some markets crippling tenants who continue to pay for spaces they can’t use because of pandemic containment mandates.

Is there a better way, a smart way for businesses to organise their workforce so that they can optimise fixed assets like facilities? 

In today’s PodChat for FutureCIO, we have with us Dinesh Malkani, Founder and CEO, Smarten Spaces on the topic of Reimagining the workplace in the post-COVID-19 era.

E-commerce is both exciting and scary. It continues to negatively impact brick-and-mortar businesses that refuse to acknowledge the value proposition of a borderless commerce model. With forecasts for growth of US$4.9 trillion in 2021, it promises to continue to be an exciting place to be in.

In particular, Asia has become the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace accounting for 59.7% of online retail and expect to reach 61.4% by 2024, according to Statista. While China continues to dwarf the region for its massive US$1 trillion market, Southeast Asia and South Asia are just as active and competitive with markets like India, Indonesia and Thailand forecasts to see CAGR of 13% or more, according to Statista. 

One of the leading online fashion stores in Asia, Zalora has been carving a niche for its use of big data and artificial intelligence to drive new levels of personalisation for itself and its brand partners.

Quiron Aguiar, Senior Strategy Director with Zalora, opens up on how data is helping the online fashion giant stay at the forefront of customer engagement and business growth.

The July 2020 issue of the World Bank’s Financial Sector’s Cybersecurity: a Regulatory Digest noted that responding to cyber incidents goes beyond an engineering problem and that any business continuity decision cannot be delegated to IT specialists.
FutureCIO spoke to Kumar Ritesh, chairman and CEO of Cyfirma, to discuss among other things the operational risks of cyber threats to Asia’s financial sector.
·       What is the state of the operational risk exposures for financial services industries in Asia?
·       What are the intrinsic difficulties financial institutions face trying to manage operational risks?
·       As we look to 2021, what, in terms of operational risks, will be top of mind for security and compliance heads working at Asia’s financial institutions? 
·       Given the state of emerging technologies and the persistent cyberthreat, describe the next-generation of operational risk management for FSIs in Asia?
·       What must heads of security and CIOs include as KPIs to better manage operational risks in 2021.
·       How do the CIO and CISO sell these new ways of managing operational risks?
·       What are your expectations from both the technology side and the way the financial services industry manage the risk?

Depending on who you talk to, ransomware seemed to be the popular topic of discussion among security vendors. Emsisoft estimates that ransomware attackers collectively took in USD25 billion in 2019. A Barracuda Networks report in 2020 indicated that 51% of organisations in Asia-Pacific have already had at least one data breach or cybersecurity incident since shifting to a remote working model.
Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist from Sophos, offers his take on the overall cybersecurity landscape in Asia-Pacific in 2020 and what it would look like in 2021.

For years, information security vendors and experts have been touting the importance of securing the perimeter, with strategies like defence-in-depth as one of several approaches to take as organisations embrace a connected economy.
Over the years, technologies and approaches have come up to the challenge of securing the enterprise. The variety of choice and technologies have left some stupefied. 
Welcome to PodChats for FutureCIO. In this episode, we speak to Joe Signorelli, Vice President, Asia Pacific Japan, for Pulse Secure. 

With software as with buying a truck, there are many variables to consider when deciding to build or buy. What is observable these days is that more organisations are prioritising on time-to-market because time is money, meaning the longer it takes to move the application from development to production, the more money the company is losing.

Is there a middle ground to all of this? 

In today’s PodChats for FutureCIO, we speak to Tony Beller, Worldwide Partner Ecosystem, TIBCO, to discuss the options available to enterprises trying to decide the software path to take.